23 August 2006

Now, the problem with this setup is simple. “Widget” is about as Valley a word as you can get. It cuts to the big problem at the heart of 2.0: a handful of old geeks and beancounters trying (and largely failing) to invest in cool services consumers luv; a bunch of hipsters trying (and failing) to revolutionize mass markets with radical management innovation.

“Widget”, let’s recall, is a term to reflect the banality of business: the generic, homogeneous, standardized, meaningless “product” churned out by industrial era business.

Calling the microchunked components of a new breed of radically innovative services, then, which connect consumers socially and culturally “widgets” is just setting the stage for (yet another) round of 2.0 funding gone awry.